1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a coin feeding apparatus for coins that are accommodated in a storage portion, separated by a rotation disk, and fed to a feed-out coin port, and more particularly to a coin feeding apparatus suitable for providing an accurate release of coins fed out along an outer periphery of the rotation disk by way of centrifugal force against a controlled resistance.
2. Description of Related Art
As one example of a conventional technique of a coin feeding apparatus, a rotation disk is provided inside a hopper and coins are scraped out one by one by a claw provided on the rotation disk and moved upward. The coins are received on a coin rail at an exit near a top portion to be guided to a coin mechanism from the exit along the rail, as shown in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2000-298749.
In such a conventional technique, a coin can inadvertently drop off the claw due to vibration occurring when coins are supplied and thrown into a hopper while a coin is being subjected to feeding operation to an exit by the rotation disk. Particularly coins having small diameter and a thin thickness can easily drop off. Although such a coin is scraped out and is in the feeding operation, if the coin drops off, the feeding operation is nullified, which undesirably reduces the coin processing efficiency.
Further, at the time of a normal coin feeding by the rotation disk, the coin is pushed out while being moved in the periphery direction on the disk face of the rotation disk, and enters a slit-shaped exit positioned in parallel. The height and width of the exit formed in a slit shape is set such that only a single horizontally-laid coin, positioned on an upper face of a lower rotation circular plate can pass through.
If a coin drops off the disk face of the rotation disk due to vibration or the like, the coin can unintentionally strike the slit-shaped exit obliquely. Then, a coin which obliquely strikes the exit can be pressed with the claw in the feeding operation on its opposite side, and consequently the coin is sandwiched between the exit and the claw to create a locked state.
In such a situation, the rotation disk cannot perform a feeding rotation operation due to the locked coin so that the rotation is stopped. A rotation stop is detected as an operation fault and the entire apparatus is stopped in its operation by a controller and removal of the locked coin is needed to restart the apparatus. Therefore, there is a problem in that a frequent abnormal stop, due to such a cause, also reduces the operation rate of the coin feeding apparatus.
Furthermore, when a coin that is carried near the exit is passed to a coin rail by the rotation disk, the coin can drop off the rail due to an unstable movement caused by vibration of the apparatus itself. The coin can drop off due to irregular motion of the coin itself when stirred and rotated at a fast speed inside the hopper instead of being located on the rail. Also, the coin may not drop off and the coin may be hung up and stopped at the rail.
In this case, when a coin that has passed to the receiving portion is fed out by a feeding wheel, the wheel can press against the coin and cannot rotate so that the apparatus will be stopped in its operation.
There is accordingly, a demand to address such problems as the requirement for increasing the speed of coin movement has increased in this field.